Oahu warehouse vacancies rising

A report by local commercial real estate firm Colliers Monroe Friedlander said there was a net gain of 88,000 square feet of vacant warehouse space on Oahu in the third quarter.

The move reversed two previous quarters of vacancy decreases totaling 200,503 square feet. During the past seven quarters, vacancy rose in four quarters and fell in three.

At the end of September, the vacancy rate was 4.36 percent, still relatively low.

That rate represents 1.68 million square feet of vacant space on the island holding 38.4 million square feet of warehouse space.

Alaska begins Maui-San Diego service

Alaska Airlines started its new daily service between San Diego and Kahului yesterday. Alaska has been adding flights to Hawaii since the departure of Aloha Airlines and ATA in 2008.

Alaska started service to Hawaii with a Seattle-Honolulu flight in October 2007, and by this winter the carrier will have up to 17 flights a day into the islands.

Bank of America to delay foreclosures

WASHINGTON » Bank of America, the country’s largest mortgage lender by assets, said yesterday that it was reviewing documents in all of its pending foreclosure cases to evaluate whether there were errors.

It is the third major lender in the past two weeks that has said it was freezing foreclosures in the 23 states where the process is controlled by courts.

But Bank of America Corp. went further than the first two lenders, GMAC Mortgage and JPMorgan Chase & Co., which have said they will amend paperwork only in cases they think were improperly done. So far, that has amounted to only a handful of cases.

Bank of America, in an e-mailed statement, said it would "amend all affidavits in foreclosure cases that have not yet gone to judgment."

That could mean tens of thousands of foreclosure cases could be affected.

Mercedes, BMW sales gain on Lexus

The race to be the year’s top-selling luxury automobile brand in the U.S. narrowed as Mercedes-Benz and BMW gained ground on Lexus in September. "Lexus has been by far the luxury leader in this market, and now Mercedes and BMW have closed that gap pretty rapidly," Joe Barker, an industry analyst with IHS Automotive, a Lexington, Mass.-based researcher, said. "The sales race will come down to the wire — it will come down right to the month of December."

Sales of Mercedes brand cars and sport-utility vehicles rose 17 percent. The results ended a three-month win streak for BMW and halved Lexus’ lead for the year. "We’re going to continue in the same direction as we have for the first nine months," Ernst Lieb, chief executive officer of Mercedes-Benz USA, said.

"Will it be necessarily again another 22 percent up or so? Maybe not, but we definitely see a two-digit increase for the remainder of the year."

On the Move

» Bank of Hawaii has promoted and hired the following:

— Alan Armstrong as vice president and senior trust compliance officer in the investment services group compliance department.
— Matthew Emerson as vice president and Internet banking manager in the online and mobile banking department.
— Vanessa J. Foster to vice president and compliance officer in the Bankoh investment services department from assistant vice president.
— Sharlene R. Ginoza-Lee to vice president and human resources manager in the human resources compensation department.
— Gregory R. Jim to vice president and senior credit risk review officer in the credit review department.
— Shazzelma "Kuuipo" Laumatia to vice president and project management office manager in Bank of Hawaii’s project management office from assistant vice president.

» Hawaii National Bank employees raised nearly $6,000 from April through July as part of the bank’s "Give a Little" summer charity initiative. The funds are for the following charities: Hospice Hawaii, the Hawaii Food Bank, Shriners Hospital for Children in Honolulu and the National Kidney Foundation of Hawaii.